Seattle billionaire calls for other billionaires to come back down to earth

[DaShi]

It's baffling that anyone could be as stupid as Ben and still function in society.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes. *AND* it should be higher.

You are very terrible at... anything that involves the use of the brain.

Your own graph shows the results of minimum wage increases. The wage goes up and then everything catches right back up again. It seems to me from the chart that the natural market-based minimum wage is around 6/6.5 dollars.

[Ben Kenobi]

I guess it's perfectly okay though for profits to increase faster than inflation - because billionaires need that money to bribe congressmen into not letting min-wage workers getting increases faster than inflation

Question, what would happen in an economy where inflation increased faster than profits?

[Sava]

You are the living embodiment of facepalm.

[Ben Kenobi]

Well, the minimum wage effect only lasts maybe a year or two before society self-corrects.

[Sava]

Hmm. I still have you on ignore but could potentially thank you. I wonder why I don't have that option with speer. Not that anyone should ever seriously thank one of his posts.

[C0ckney]

a good article and a retelling of an essential truth which seems to be forgotten in many debates about inequality and the distribution of wealth, namely that companies cannot sell products unless workers have the wherewithal to buy them.

ultimately however, the author merely wants to throw a few more crumbs down from the table, much like some of our own wealthier posters, i think here especially of pchang; and although this approach is certainly preferable to that of the 'let them eat cake' crowd and their useful idiots (a couple of whom have made an appearance in this thread), it is of no use to those of us who want a society where we all sit at the table and decide upon how to use society's resources.

[Aeson]

Minimum wage increase by x percent.

COL increase by x+y percent.

Can be true ... if Y is a negative value or X is absurd (say, $500/hr).

Increasing minimum wage (in a reasonable way) only affects a small subset of the demand in regards to COL. So you would expect < X increase in COL. Even after factoring in greater profits for those higher on the economic pyramid, you won't see increased consumption of the items important to minimum wage workers' COL either.

[kentonio]

a good article and a retelling of an essential truth which seems to be forgotten in many debates about inequality and the distribution of wealth, namely that companies cannot sell products unless workers have the wherewithal to buy them.

ultimately however, the author merely wants to throw a few more crumbs down from the table, much like some of our own wealthier posters, i think here especially of pchang; and although this approach is certainly preferable to that of the 'let them eat cake' crowd and their useful idiots (a couple of whom have made an appearance in this thread), it is of no use to those of us who want a society where we all sit at the table and decide upon how to use society's resources.

The first might actually happen, the second never will. Probably better to support something that would actually help rather than waiting forever for something that's never going to arrive.

[C0ckney]

for me it's not a case of us waiting passively for something to happen, but rather organising ourselves to demand and bring about the changes which will make that society possible.

of course i accept that this is unlikely to happen given the current context, and so i support measures, such as this one, which will improve the material conditions of the workers.

[Ben Kenobi]

Increasing minimum wage (in a reasonable way) only affects a small subset of the demand in regards to COL. So you would expect < X increase in COL. Even after factoring in greater profits for those higher on the economic pyramid, you won't see increased consumption of the items important to minimum wage workers' COL either.

Happened every minimum wage increase. The minimum wage increases, inflation takes it back.

[Aeson]

There are a myriad of reasons you could use to explain why that correlation occurred. Minimum wage as the sole driver of inflation is one of the obviously wrong explanations.

[Dinner]

In fact, as Aeson has pointed out, Ben is completely wrong.

[Ming]

In fact, as Aeson has pointed out, Ben is completely wrong.

And this comes as no surprise, since he is usually completely wrong

[kentonio]

And this comes as no surprise, since he is always completely wrong

FTFY